Pianist Cecil Taylor -- who yesterday I might have described as "preeminent" rather than "predominant" -- read his erudite, sound-sensitive poetry in the first half of his sold-out 80th birthday concert at Merkin Hall, then performed solo sonatas for approximately 50 minutes. An infant in the audience occasionally cooing along with Taylor's precise diction made it difficult to catch every word (much less all the meaning) of his texts, filled as they were with the recondite references to biology, mathematics, Egyptian and Mayan … [Read more...]